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Someone gave me an older PC, and it runs XP pretty snappy, but thought it'd make a good Ubuntu box. I got the Ubuntu 11.10 install ISO, and have got that started, but I have questions.

The PC has a recovery partition with an XP image on it, that I'd like to keep. The main partition (currently C: ) is where I'd like to put Ubuntu. I've got that selected in the install process but it wants to know two things:

a) what file system to use for it. (ext2, ext3, etc)

b) a dir for a mount point (/boot, /home, etc)

I'm not going to get too fancy with partitioning, so I think just knowing those two things should get me by. I'll just be using it as a web surf pc.

Using the file you downloaded to verify the same file makes no sense to me.

Well, I believe the thinking is kind of like putting a digital signature on a binary. The signature refers to everything else, except the signature. But all of the standard tools for verifying checksums expect the .md5 to be separate, and I don't think there's any official way to glue the two files together, so even a one-byte difference in where the file is split will ruin the checksum. It just seems like a bad idea, all around.

If you want an inherent checksum, use an archive utility that supports them, like RAR.

And, heck, if you want to just break standards like that, why not go to a genuinely GOOD tool, like .PAR? Not only will it verify the file, if you include some extra data, it can actually fix errors, not just report them.

My biggest concern now is backups without having to deal with an external drive. We've been using Carbonite at the office for all Windows and Mac systems with little hassle, and I'd like to see about getting something similar setup on this system now. Is that even possible? And if so, what's the recommended method?

"You're right, I should never argue The IT Crowd with you. You can be Moss, and I'll be Roy." - Bonus_Eruptus | trueheart78.com | GameList: trueheart78

I was wondering where the F that response came from. I went back two pages looking for someone who responded "Let me google that for you" and didn't see anything so just figured it was crazy random intezen.

I was wondering where the F that response came from. I went back two pages looking for someone who responded "Let me google that for you" and didn't see anything so just figured it was crazy random intezen.

If you quote it, you can see the html link, which is disabled here for newbies.

What's linux NTFS support like nowadays? I'm wondering about read/write support mainly, as I know read support has been there for ages, but I seem to remember something that write support was a little experimental, and that you were advised to chkdsk the NTFS partitions afterwards to make sure it didn't mess up anything, but that might be ancient information.

Pretty good, if you're using the NTFS-3G driver, which runs in user-space (via FUSE). It's been around for a while now, with full read-write support, and I haven't heard any reports of it eating anyone's filesystems, so it should be perfectly safe to use.

Sounds like they're pretty on top of that driver, having issued a number of fixes for Win8 just a few days ago, and they say most distros come with it preloaded. From the description of the features added and bugs fixed in the most recent release, I'd trust it. They sound minor and fiddly and responding to the Win8 changes, rather than real problems with their code.

Typical newb question. Either direct answers or telling me what to google to find the answer would be great.

I've got a physical drive with a previous install of Linux that's borked beyond boot capacity. No worries. I have a different drive that boots just fine and reads the first one without a problem. But if I want to access it from a program, like LibreOffice, I have to go to the Places menu and open up the drive first. Otherwise I get a hanging error or 'This drive cannot be opened because another operation is already in progress.' After that all is good, and I don't need the file browser open. What would one do to fix this? Also, is there any reason not to just delete all the old system files from the broken Linux install? Space isn't really an issue, so I haven't done it yet.

"The number of things I’ve seen on the internet that I wish I could unsee has gotten so large that I’m beginning to forget them. So, I win, I guess." -First World Problems

When accessing the second drive, are you just going by drive letter (sdb, sdc or whatever) or do you have it mounted already somewhere, such as /disk2 or what have you? You could try creating a mount point for the second disk, and mounting at boot. that way it should alwways be available.

When accessing the second drive, are you just going by drive letter (sdb, sdc or whatever) or do you have it mounted already somewhere, such as /disk2 or what have you? You could try creating a mount point for the second disk, and mounting at boot. that way it should alwways be available.

What I assume is happening, is that the drive is unmounted at startup, but can be seen and accessed via the default file browser because it will display unmounted disks in the sidebar. Once you click on an unmounted disk gnome-volume-manager will mount the disk for you automatically and it will remain mounted until you log off. The traditional linux method of getting a disk mounted whenever your computer starts up would be editing /etc/fstab. Before you dive into that though, you might be able to accomplish it easier by simply following their directions for mounting automatically with udisks.

Been using Ubuntu 12.04 now for nearly 2 months instead of Windows and have been very happy. Sure, I've had my issues, but it's been great otherwise. Glad I'm generally plugged in, because yes, my battery life is terrible, but I'm ok with that (I know many wouldn't be, though).

"You're right, I should never argue The IT Crowd with you. You can be Moss, and I'll be Roy." - Bonus_Eruptus | trueheart78.com | GameList: trueheart78

IIRC, Nvidia battery life isn't that good, even on Windows, if you have multiple monitors connected. I think the cards refuse to drop into low-power state when they have multiple screens to drive, and they eat battery really quickly.

I'm not certain if that's still true with current hardware, but I know it was true in the 4XX series.

I'm sure this has been discussed, but Ubuntu Unity. What's so bad about it?

Maybe I've learned to somewhat avoid spending a bunch of time in OS menus altogether when I don't have to, but I don't find that Unity hinders me in any way. I like how the top bar is small and unobtrusive, and I like the apps on the left, that's where I've had it for about a year in Windows as well. I think it makes sense for a widescreen monitor, you have much more width to spare than height.

But when I need to open a program, I usually already know what it's called. I click the Ubuntu button or press the Windows key, and I just type in the program I want. Once it's the first one to show up, I click enter. Done. Terminal is ctrl+alt+T, so that's easy.

Has Windows 7 and 8 just trained me to ignore and skip over the OS UI as much as possible?